Divorce Lawyer Turns to Ballroom Dancing to Resuscitate Marriages

In Great Britain, Vanessa Lloyd Platt is widely known as a divorce attorney. She's all over the TV with advertisements, and she also offers legal sessions with couples to help them save their marriages, all for $500 adjusted dollars an hour. She also appears on "Good Morning Television," the United Kingdom’s "Today" Show, offering relationship advice.

Lloyd Platt’s own divorce also brought her headlines, when she was arrested for attempting to pervert the cause of justice. The charges were dropped, though she alleged that her ex-husband, David Lloyd Platt tried to poison her and tampered with the brakes on her car in an attempt to injure her. The divorce lawyer’s divorce became her own worst-case scenario.

She and David Lloyd Platt divorced last year after 16 years of marriage. As the marriage came apart, Lloyd Platt agreed to film a documentary, "London Tango", which will premiere in the title city’s Notting Hill Film Festival next month. One of the subjects of the film, Lloyd Platt learns to foxtrot and waltz with a little help from a professional partner, Ian Waite, star of the British television show "Strictly Come Dancing."

According to Lloyd Platt, learning to ballroom dance has had a transformative effect on her life. "I have found myself through dance in the middle of all this furor," referring to the headlines her divorce made in the British press.

"The film is about what dance can do," she tells the British newspaper The Daily Mail. "If people going through divorce or a relationship breakdown learned to dance, I believe this country could completely turn around."

That view is certainly an optimistic take on the recuperative powers of the tango, but Lloyd Platt, who counsels couples to divorce under the most amicable circumstances possible, says that she has already put her new strategy on the table as an option for others.

"I have actually said to my clients if there is any possibility of a resolution with your partner, why don’t you attempt to resurrect the relationship by dancing?" She recommends considering any therapeutic options before proceeding with the divorce process, which can be costly and emotionally damaging.

"Dancing is a lot cheaper than coming to me," she says. In fact, by her estimate, Lloyd Platt’s
counseling sessions cost about five times what it costs to pick up some new moves on a ballroom dance floor.

In her personal life, the twice divorced divorce attorney is putting her dance strategy into action. She is currently dating Stewart Moss, a British entrepreneur, and the couple is already taking classes. Moss appears in the film with her, though Lloyd Platt admits her new relationship is
still a work in progress.

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